Darker Places
by TheGreenBook
Summary: Gale and Katniss have a conversation in the cellar the night before they plan to approach Snow's mansion. One Lemon so far. From Gale's POV! Remember, Mockingjay was never my story to begin with! Reviews greatly appreciated!
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Welcome to my Hunger Games fan fic! This takes place in Chapter 24 of Mockingjay, when the team is preparing to approach Snow's mansion. It is from Gale's POV. Please read and review. Remember, I own none of these characters! Enjoy!**

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**Darker Places  
Chapter 1**

When I wake up in the cellar in the middle of the night, the first thing I do I look over to make sure she's still there. And she is, curled up across the cellar with her head on an old pillow. My throat is dry, so I grab a small bottle of water and have a few sips. I try to forget the last dream flying through my head but it won't go away. I've just got to the ladder and I'm climbing and I can hear Finnick below me. I get to the top but then the mutts are on him and I can't look away, and it's Katniss that finally let go of the Holo and puts Finnick out of his misery, just like she did for Cato in the first games, and just like she's promised to do for me. I'm noticing a theme.

"Are you awake?" I hear. I look up to see Katniss sitting up. She'd been sleeping in the far corner of the cellar, while I was at the foot of the steps, close to Peeta.

"Did I wake you?" I ask. She doesn't answer. No one is sleeping very well, but to give them what little sleep we can, Katniss responds by moving over beside me. I put an arm around her, just to pull her close for a second. We are silent. "I can't stop thinking about tomorrow."

"You too?" Katniss asks. I glance at her but I can barely see her face in the fading candlelight. I shake my head. There is any number of scenarios that could happen tomorrow. The plan for Katniss to reach the mansion and kill Snow is a possibility, but along those lines, there are many other outcomes. Any one of us could die on the way to the mansion. Peeta could get captured and have to use the nightlock, I could get captured and Katniss be unable to kill me before they take me alive, and even Katniss… I can't even think about the horrors that could be in store for her. I want to think about a good outcome: of Snow dying and the capital folding and Katniss, and Peeta, and I, and the rest of the team, on a hovercraft back to Thirteen by tomorrow afternoon.

And then what? What happens when everything else goes according to plan? I want to know who she can't survive without and then I also don't want to know because I can't deal with another negative thought invading my mind.

"I haven't seen the sun in months." Katniss says. "Even now." She gestures to the single candle burning. It's true.

"I've been to darker places." I say, softly. "Down in the mines, it is so dark, whenever my head lamp burned out, it would feel like the air was pressing down on me from all sides, slowly suffocating me, and it's all I can do to change the batteries as quick as I can so I can see again, and until then, I have to wonder if that is how dying feels. Like a never ending blackness."

Beside me, Katniss shivers. I never talked about working in the mines, not to my mother, my brothers, or anyone. Katniss and I never even discussed the explosion that took our fathers, but as far as accidents in the mine go, I would rather go quickly then suffer through a collapse I can't be rescued from. I don't wish to linger in front of the inevitable.

"I'm sorry you had to go to work down there." Katniss says.

"I had… I have a family to support." I reply. "That was how it was for us, and you know that. It was either run away or go to work in the mines. I couldn't run."

Peeta stirs, lifting his head up for a second before dropping it again. I wait until his breathing evens out before I continue.

"My family kept me going when I was down in the mines." I finally say. "Just knowing I would see them when I got back to topside was what made the day pass that much faster. Thinking about you kept me going as well." I see her smile, just a tiny bit.

"You know, everyone calls you the girl on fire but I honestly don't see it. To be on fire means to eventually burn out, and if you were going to burn out you would have done it long before now. And you don't even burn bright, like fire. You are simply bright. You're the sunlight I wished in the mine, and if I am lucky enough to see the sun ever again, then I want to be able to see it with you by my side." Once I start, I can't stop.

"I know you think that I only started to pay attention to you when you were with Peeta, but that's not true. I've known you forever and I have been noticing things to love about you for that long. I may have never proposed to you in front of an entire country but I've been always been willing to die for you. And I know you can survive without me. That fact only makes me love you more."

"Gale." Katniss says.

"I know, before…" I began. "That time in the woods, with the kiss… when I said I had to do that just once, well, I lied because I wanted to do it again and again. If we would have had another chance I would have taken it. But we never had a chance." She shakes her hand. "I'm sorry. The odds aren't in my favor tomorrow and I couldn't go down fighting without telling you how I felt. I never wanted there to be any doubt."

"Gale." Katniss says, and I know that now is not the time or place. "I want to sleep now." And just like that, she lies down next to me, and some time, much quicker then I expect, we are both sound asleep.

When I wake up what has to be an hour or two later I feel better rested then I have in a while. Katniss and I are curled up on a pile of furs which have kept us warm on the cold concrete floor. She's lying on her side with her back to my chest and my arm is loose against her stomach. The entire time my eyes had been shut I hadn't had one nightmare. I'm trying to figure out, what, exactly, woke me up, when I hear the heavy gasps coming from across the cellar. They remind me of the mutts from an immeasurable amount of days ago, but they aren't saying anyone's name.

Immediately I focus my eyes into the shadows and meet a pair of cold, blue eyes glaring back at me. His face is bathed in sweat and he's straining so hard against his hand cuffs that fresh trails of blood are running down his arms. I've seen what his hands can do to a person. He's frightening.

"Peeta." Katniss whispers. "What's wrong?"

If he has to be mad at someone I want him to be mad at me because I can't bear the idea of him hurting her because of me. I know how this is going to end but I had to try. He's been trying for two years. He has to know how I feel.

Peeta is still not speaking, but his gasps have become higher pitched, like he's struggling to breathe. Katniss crawls over to him and pulls out a key.

"Don't." I say, because Peeta, in this state, could harm more than just me.

"He's fine." Katniss says, and I can see him visibly relaxing in her presence but he's still looking at me and even if he doesn't say another word I'll always know that when he woke up last night he never really fell back asleep. He heard everything. And so, because he can hurt more than just me, he does, with one single sentence directed not at me, but at Katniss. He levels his gaze with her and with a disgusted look on his face very calmly plays his hand. It comes out softly and hits the floor hard.

"I can't believe you slept with him."

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**Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Please review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews. Please enjoy this chapter and review if you would like! **

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**Chapter 2**

Katniss glances at me. She has to be wondering what Peeta means, and which one of us is going to speak first. I can't answer and at the same time the response is sitting on my tongue. I don't lie.

It happened once. It was after I kissed her on that hot afternoon in District 2. That night, I was lying in my bunk in some forgotten army barracks, replaying every encounter we ever had since the age of twelve and wondering if I had just played my cards differently, if she would have wanted to come home from the first Games and found her way to my arms. Peeta was right about one thing: Katniss never noticed what was right in front of her face.

Not that I really felt that way about her from the time I met her. I just thought that it would eventually be her and I, and that was it. The boy with the bread had never crossed my mind.

The boy with the bread was now looking like he wanted to rip my face off and spit in my eye sockets. Katniss was making soothing sounds Peeta was ignoring.

"You slept with him," Peeta says, "real or not real?"

"Peeta, we're all sleeping together," Katniss says. "I was sleeping on the floor…" She had last been in my arms.

"I don't mean now!" Peeta exclaims, "Before!"

And just like that I'm transported back to an immeasurable amount of time ago, to a district much different than this one, to a place a million miles from a cold cellar in the middle of a brewing war.

I can still feel the plastic coated regulation mattress beneath my back, and in my mind's eye I can see dust spinning in the moonlight coming in between slats of the metal building we are seeking shelter in. It was so dark in Two where we were camped, far from the rest of sprawling desert and battered wasteland that the District is known for. I could feel people close by, the rest of the team either sleeping or in the next room pacing and talking quietly. Three feet from my bunk, Katniss is lying on her own cot. The team has been giving us privacy lately, which is both a blessing and a curse. I feel like I might go insane with anticipation for what lies ahead. It's hard to see Katniss feeling the same way, however, we suffered together before, and this is no different.

There's a soft creak of metal springs, and I see Katniss sit up. I lie perfectly still and wait to see if she says anything. She stands up, soundlessly walks two steps, and drops her hands onto my chest. I gasp.

"Move over," Katniss says, and I look up at her. She's dressed in a faded green sleeveless top she procured from my duffel bag when my back was turned. The shirt is very long, it hits her at about mid thigh, and it might be all that she's wearing. The sight of what she is wearing or her body so close doesn't surprise me. The gasp comes from the fact that after me lying here, trying to figure out how I might kiss her again, just one more time, she has approached me. "Gale?"

I moved over and Katniss slides onto the cot beside me. She grabs my right hand and puts it behind my head, then lays her head on the soft pillow my bicep has made for her. She sighs, and her warm breath hits the side of my chest and I want her so bad.

"I feel like I'm sleeping on a rock," Katniss says.

"Don't let anyone hear you say that," I say. "They're all convinced you would sleep standing up in a puddle of mud and enjoy it." She laughs.

"Today was good, yes?" Katniss asks.

"Today was very good," I reply. Today we went to a hospital and visited the wounded rebels. We sat through yet another strategy meeting. I walked into the shower room, grateful for an ice cold shower at the end of a long and dusty day and saw Katniss naked.

That thought does all sorts of odd things to my head. I want to pretend she's my cousin again.

Since she's on her side there's no place for her left hand to go, so it lands on my chest and stays in one place. I'm already drenched in sweat from the sheer stillness of the unrelenting heat and her proximity to me does not help the situation.

"Katniss," I say, and I turn my head. I'm not sure who moves first but then her lips are enveloped in mine and her fingers are gripping skin right over my heart. The skin on her lips feels cracked and dry. She tastes like dust, peppermint, and desperation.

"Yes," Katniss says, and I realize that I might have just asked her a question, but then again, our relationship has always been one question after another and it's high time one of us gets an answer.

Then her hands are on the button of the worn pair of pants I'm wearing, almost as my own sort of rebellion against the skimpy ensemble Katniss went to bed wearing. No matter what, I could never let her get this close, could never let her see me this vulnerable, and yet I have, without even trying.

She pulls the pants down and drops them to the floor, then straddles my waist.

"How you ever?" Katniss asks.

"Never," I reply. "I always thought…" I don't ask her if she's ever done this before. My hands find her waist and then we are kissing once more. Katniss takes my hand, she guides it beneath her shirt, and I grip each of her breasts carefully, shocked that there could be places that feel this soft and smooth on her body. Her body is radiating heat, and it feels like we might just burst into flames together. The heat is at the breaking point when I slide my hands down her body and find a pair of cotton underwear. They fit her hips loosely. The elastic feels worn between my fingers. She makes no move to take them off and I'm so caught up that I just slip my fingers between the fabric and her skin.

"Yes," Katniss says again, and she moves so that her body settles against my fingers. She slides against the two fingers I find myself pressing against her. I kiss her and close my eyes. "Yes, Gale. Yes." She's breathing harder now and I'm trying to catch up, the words "should/shouldn't" slamming through my mind, right before I feel the muscles between her legs clench tight. Her knees are gripping my waist and Katniss is moaning into my mouth and I'm sucking on her lower lip, enjoying the feeling of her on me.

Her muscles are still quivering when she slides her hips down my body, just the slightest, and pulls the underwear to the side and then I'm inside of her. The feeling, the tightness, is so unexpected. I'm still adapting to it when she begins to rock her hips back and forth. We're still kissing, alternating between opening our eyes and keeping them closed and I'm wondering who she's thinking about.

"Yes," Katniss says. "Yes, Gale, yes…" She's grinding against me harder now. My hands are on her waist and my body is in panic mode because this isn't right and yet I could care less about how right it is. It feels so good to be so unhinged with her. We're in the middle of a rebellion. People are dying and this feels so fucking good.

"Katniss," I moan, against her lips. "Catnip…" I feel a shudder in my stomach and I grab her waist and wrench off of me before my body literally cracks in half. Warmth spills out of me, somehow hotter than the room we are in. Katniss pushes her lips against mine and absorbs every noise I make before she climbs off of me and leaves the cot. I'm left breathless for a second, and I'm still trying to put my mind back together when she returns and offers me a bottle of water and a towel. I sip the water and then sit up and put my pants back on. I lay back down and Katniss lies down beside me.

"Now you have," Katniss says.

I never expected my first time to make me feel sick.

"Real or not real!" Peeta's scream brings me back to the present time. I look at Katniss, who looks scared, and then at Peeta, who can't know the truth. I cross the room and punch him in the back of the head so hard he can only gape at me for a second before he goes unconscious, slumped over into Katniss's lap. She looks up at me, horrified, and at the same time understanding my reasoning. Her eyes, those cool grey eyes I looked into on that one night, meet mine.

"Real," Katniss whispers.


End file.
